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Gabriel Wu 17:51, 25 March 2013 (EDT): As part of the motivation for "shmeat", it's fair to outline the specific controversies with real meat. A little time line might be neat. Things to include can be Sinclair's Jungle, taco bell beef controversy, IKEA horse controversy, and the PETA prize awards.

Kevin Baldridge 17:51, 25 March 2013 (EDT):Do synthetic meats have to be exercised?

Siddharth Das 7:10, 1 April 2013 (EDT): Apparently they do. Exercising stimulates myofibril fusion and thus growth. I assume there is a difference in taste between strong meat and atrophied meat.

Kevin Baldridge 11:30, 28 March 2013 (EDT):Maybe this is a better way to produce veal, which is intentionally not exercised to remain tender. Much more humane than a suffering baby cow, I think?

Siddharth Das 7:10, 1 April 2013 (EDT):you bring up an interesting point. Each cut of meat has indicative characteristics that give each cut flavor, texture, and etc. That depends the degree of exercise, vitamins, mineral, and even bone.

Siddharth Das 7:10, 1 April 2013 (EDT): I hope not. From my knowledge, most current sythetic meats look like processed meats similiar to spam. But, the point of bio scaffolding is allow the meat to be molded into almost replica of the meat.

Catherine I. Mortensen 17:52, 25 March 2013 (EDT): Do you have an idea how long it took to grow the transplanted trachea and other synthetic meats for that matter?

Yunle Huang 18:49, 25 March 2013 (EDT):A company called Modern Meadow is trying to make a meat printer. Here, you can see one of the co-founders cooking and eating a sample live. In the video, he gives examples of demand: vegetarians who care about the way animals are treated, and religions that prohibit killing of certain animals. Another co-founder also does a reddit AMA that I found interesting.

Siddharth Das 13:27, 1 April 2013 (EDT): Very nice citing reddit as a source. In a serious note, these are all relevant issue concerning synthetic meats. Although synthetic meats provides an alternative to killing animals, the religious implications are ridiculous to make. First, you still make this meat from progenitor cells from the animal. If some religious sects can't even drink milk that originates from an animal, I doubt this is a solution. Also, in a strictly vegetarian standpoint, most individuals would have difficulty digesting meat which they have avoided most of their lives. Second, I doubt religions are looking for solution. Even with a solution, most religions won't readily accept the new social precedent (i.e. prop 8).

Neil R Gottel 14:10, 26 March 2013 (EDT):That Winston Churchill quote is real, in case anyone was wondering (since Churchill has a slew of quotes misattributed to him). It comes from a fairly long article that appeared in a couple different magazines (something called Strand Magazine, and Popular Mechanics). Here's a copy of it. Perhaps more relevant to our class is this line, which appears a few sentences before the synthetic meat line: "Microbes, which at present convert the nitrogen of the air into the proteins by which animals live, will be fostered and made to work under controlled conditions, just as yeast is now."